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Another question is, what about the magnetic field around the earth? Why is it changing? Is it because of hair-spray? Or is it due to a natural occurance of Mother Earth?

like *.gov

Like, say, NASA?

Great article. Favorite quotes:

1) "The answer is, yes, the process does stifle creativity."

2) "6,366 lines of code. The specs for that one change run 2,500 pages, a volume thicker than a phone book. The specs for the current program fill 30 volumes and run 40,000 pages."

3) "on a dollars-per-line basis, it makes the group among the nation's most expensive software organizations"

My company's going for level 3. If we ever get to level 5 and there's 2500 pages of doc for every 6 KLOC, I'm either leaving, moving to the systems engineering group, and/or writing a doxygen-style generator to crank out all the doc from code. I wonder how many doc-generators have been written at Clear Lake?

It looks like they've been writing and maintaining this 424 KLOC program for 21 years with 260 people... that's 77 LOC per year (okay, unfair given that they've probably rewritten it a few times over the years, and the team size may not have always been 260, but still...)

If bugs I wrote could get people killed, sure, I'd want a process involving serious reviews and an independent validation group, but 2.5 LOC per doc page seems over the top.

I wonder if they're coding in an obsolete language on obsolete hardware? Where the available abstractions fit the problem space so poorly that most of the 260 people spend their days as human compilers for the ad-hoc programming language that they've invented for their "like pseudocode" 40,000 page specifications?

I looked it up, sure enough, a custom language called "HAL/S" from the 70s, on an underpowered IBM flight control computer designed in the eary 80s as an upgrade from one designed in the early 70s. The hardware comes with the byzantine architecture that such machines are famous for (24 IO processors each managing 24 buses, 28 bit words, etc). All managed explicitly by the programmers, no doubt. http://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/computer.html

I did a couple years of DSP programming on a specialized IBM computer designed before the first Terminator movie came out (IBM AN/UYS-1, affectionately known as the "anus 1"); 95% of the code is just dealing with the complicated memory and IO architecture, the other 5% is your actual algorithm and control logic.

Since the wonderful CMMI-5 process proudly "does stifle creativity", nobody will get around to writing a compiler for that hidden spec language. The complexity of the hardware would probably make it incredibly hard anyway. Since they're spending $35M a year on software, they can't afford to get some better computers, maybe the 386's they're using on the ISS, so they could code in a better language (C++?) or meta-language (matlab generating C?) on a straightforward hardware platform (flat memory 32 bit single fast CPU with mem-mapped register/DMA IO and FPGAs to handle most nanosecond-scale I/O timing instead of software loops) and reduce the 420 KLOC to maybe 30 KLOC or less.

It's classic beaurocratic myopia - they've optimized their little corner of the system, but nobody at NASA is looking at the big picture. Instead, they crow about their software assembly line to whomever will listen, and nobody ever questions why they're using hundreds of people to do the job of a compiler. No offense to the people there, I'm sure they work hard and smart (as smart as they're allowed to), but I question the value of attaining excellence at pushing the old boulder up that mountain over and over again. What can you do with that?

This group is held up as an example in all the process training classes I've ever had to sit through. Nobody ever goes into any detail about what they're doing, just that they are at level 5. The CMMI reminds me of scientology.

It goes even further back than that. Try the Tech Update section of Popular Mechanics from around 1990.

If you really want to rain on the article, the first satellites weren't much bigger than we're talking here. Sputnik 1 was a 23 inch sphere. Vanguard 1 (the US's 2nd satellite) was only 6 inches in diameter. Both were genuine scientific mission, providing some of the first data we got about atmospheric density, temperature, radiation, and micrometorites from a low earth orbit. In fact, the solar powered Vanguard provided a strong enough radio signal for tracking for 7 years, which helped to determine that the earth isn't quite round. In fact, the Vanguard 1 is actually still in orbit, currently the oldest artificial satellite, and should continue orbiting for almost 200 more years.

Yeah, I read that article, too: The Most Important Thing Armstrong Left on the Moon

Those lasers must have some pretty impressive control systems to hit such a small target (2-feet across) from 385,000km away, especially when you consider that the earth's surface is (on average) rotating at 73.773m/s.

Now if only the US military's laser-guided weapons were half as good! :)

A satellite array can be directional in the same way antenna arrays such as those used in RADAR are currently. They all transmit the same signal, but each delays the signal by an amount dependant on the geometry of the formation, causing the interference pattern to create directionality.

I couldn't find a real good reference online, so this is all I can point to.

This is occurring in North America, which somehow makes it news(?)

Of course, there have been plenty of micro- and nano-sat's in the US too... the CubeSat community has been doing stuff like this for years, and NASA/AFRL have sponsored the University Nanosat competition for the last several years. Not to mention NASA projects like the ST-5 nanosat constellation pathfinder, or Air Force projects like PICOsat.

Not that what the CanX team are doing isn't cool. But they're just one member of a much larger community of smallsat developers that get hardly any PR. One of the best resources for seeing what the small/micro/nano-sat community is up to is the annual SmallSat conference.

I am all for less expensive satellites. The problem with this Idea is tht satellites so small are difficuylt to track, and we already have Huge Problems with all the debris that circles the earth, remaining of previous launches, discarded stages of rockets, et cetera, et cetera.

Those problems are that any of those pieces of debris may collide with satellites and spacecraft currently in use, damaging it. Actually, It is a big Concern for the International Space Station.

Please take a look at the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, and see for yoursefl why this seems like a bad Idea

http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/

Use of the shelf parts to make tham cheaper and lighter, and redundancy to make them last longer, but make them the same size as they are today!

Suerte a todos y feliz dia!

NASA already has a couple nanosat programs that will fly in formation. They are sometimes refered to as constellation missions.

ST-5
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/st5/

THEMIS
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis/flash.html

These are the two that I know off the top of my head.

Actually, Mimas (another Saturnian moon) is the space station you refer to...

Death star/moon:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image -details.cfm?imageID=1637

All the moons, including this one are not newly found. It's an old moon, known for a very long time.

These interesting moons have one thing in common, they are huge. They have gravity and a core. Without gravity, there will be no atmosphere, and the core might produce geological energies etc. Especially this combination of a core with minerals, and an outer layer of ice/water are interesting in regards to life as this is the combination you need. It's just like Europa (at Jupiter).

Smaller moons might be discovered as time goes by, but if they have eluded detection so far, they only have a size that will deprive them of the above important features. When they are small, the become meteor like, and we might as well check out meteors.

So don't expect any new moons like this to be discovered. Only new information and details about the ones we already know.

In regards to "how many" the number will probably be defined by definition. How big should it be to be a moon? In a sense you might say the rings are millions of tiny moons, but most will probably not say they are within the definition. But what about the big chunks in the rings? Some of the chunks make tracks in the rings... are they considered moons?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/ca ssini-051005.html

So far we have already discovered all the "big" moons.

An off the cuff guess? About that warm spot and tiger stripe at Encaladus's south pole?

Meteor impact, and seismic aftereffects.

After all, it has the "Death Star" moon for a neighbor: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/ca ssini-080505.html

As usual, get the information straight from NASA

Press Release, Pictures

As usual, get the information straight from NASA

Press Release, Pictures

As usual, get the information straight from NASA

Press Release, Pictures

Big shot. It is 6200x8000 pixels and 8.4 MB big. Amazing how clear and big we can get with today's satellites.

2 Years ago a space probe crashed on Jupiter, killing my rich uncle....

made it to Mars...this time, she's going straight for the Kuiper Belt!

http://www.cicero.uio.no/fulltext.asp?id=3561&lang =en

This shows some interesting trends. First off, it looks as though the greatest retreat in recent history was during the 1940s. The page goes on to say that there was a bit of an advance during the 1990's but that 2002/2003 were very warm winters and there was a great deal of retreat then.

When I go to sites showing retreat, a lot of them show data from the 2002/2003 cycle. I think both sides are cherry picking.

Interestingly the 2002/2003 retreat is reflected in the susnspot cycle:
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspot s.htm

Oh -- and if you look at the sunspot cycles from 1750 to present there seems to be an overall increase in activity: http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/images/ zurich.gif

I'm sure human kind is responsible for some part of climate change, but I believe that other forces are at work as well, and may be more important than Greenhouse gasses. I think we should focus resources on adapting to those forces and I do believe a strong economy will be the backbone of this adaptation.

http://www.cicero.uio.no/fulltext.asp?id=3561&lang =en

This shows some interesting trends. First off, it looks as though the greatest retreat in recent history was during the 1940s. The page goes on to say that there was a bit of an advance during the 1990's but that 2002/2003 were very warm winters and there was a great deal of retreat then.

When I go to sites showing retreat, a lot of them show data from the 2002/2003 cycle. I think both sides are cherry picking.

Interestingly the 2002/2003 retreat is reflected in the susnspot cycle:
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspot s.htm

Oh -- and if you look at the sunspot cycles from 1750 to present there seems to be an overall increase in activity: http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/images/ zurich.gif

I'm sure human kind is responsible for some part of climate change, but I believe that other forces are at work as well, and may be more important than Greenhouse gasses. I think we should focus resources on adapting to those forces and I do believe a strong economy will be the backbone of this adaptation.

Why in Bush's name are we cutting fuding to nasa?

Erm, where did you get that info from? Bush does many shitty things, but cutting NASA funding isn't one of them. In fact, NASA is one of the few non-defense government agencies which has actually seen funding increases. Bush even threatened to veto a huge appropriations bill unless legislators increased NASA's funding by a billion dollars.

The official info on NASA's budget can be seen here.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). It became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading of audio onto portable players or personal computers.

Podcasting is distinct from other types of online media delivery because of its subscription model, which uses a feed (such as RSS or Atom) to deliver an enclosed file. Podcasting enables independent producers to create self-published, syndicated "radio shows," and gives broadcast radio programs a new distribution method. Listeners may subscribe to feeds using "podcatching" software (a type of aggregator), which periodically checks for and downloads new content automatically. Some podcatching software is also able to synchronise (copy) podcasts to portable music players. Any digital audio player or computer with audio-playing software can play podcasts. The same technique can deliver video files, and by 2005 some aggregators could play video as well as audio.

"Podcasting" is a portmanteau word that combines the words "broadcasting" and "iPod." The term can be misleading since neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or any portable music player. For that reason, various writers have suggested reinterpreting the letters POD to create "backronyms" such as "Personal On-Demand."[1] The term "Radio Me" was coined by Peter Day of the BBC for the same reason. A little-used alternate is "blogcasting", although this usually only refers to recordings that are based on, or similar in format to, blogs.

this may be a podcast
feed://science.nasa.gov/podcast.xml

but this is not:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/pla sticspaceships/audio/story.mp3

smartass.. :)

I'd want to see how the material handles long-term exposure to vacuum and large temperature swings before using it in any space-borne structural applications. Most plastics contain plasticizers that help improve flexibility and handling properties, but which slowly evaporate leaving the material brittle (anyone ever see what happens to a plastic milk jug left in the sun for a year?). Moreover, plastics tend to have structural properties that are very temperature sensitive -- at modestly high temperatures, plastics slowly stretch to failure, at modestly low temperatures, they fracture. The "temperature" in space is strongly dependent on whether the surface is facing the sun or not. It's baking hot on the sunny side and freezing cold on the shady side -- not a good environment for plastics.

The history of material science is the history of failures such as the catastrophic failure discovered in Liberty ship hulls in cold North Atlantic waters (learning that some steel alloys are brittle in low temperatures) to the Comet airplane crashes (learning that aluminum fatigues from repeat cycles of stress). I can only hope that NASA does something like LDEF with this material before depending on it to hold its properties for several years of space-exposure.

Why in Bush's name are we cutting fuding to nasa? After this alumna-plastic and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature= 490 aerogel, seems to me they are doing cutting edge USEFULL research.

As a side note NASA World Wind uses .NET:

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

It's similar to Google Earth, except that its 180MB and once you download it it tells you you need to upgrade your version of .NET, and another dialog pops up saying Direct X needs to be upgraded too. At this point, I decided not to continue. I don't fancy reading one of MS's EULAs, don't care to download one of their hulking tarballs, don't want Direct X changed in case it breaks something.

Piece of shit Nasa, .NET is just a wrapper for Windows on the local machine, why didn't you just make native code you f**** idiots.

The Earth's magnetic field doesn't shield us from cosmic rays.

I hate to respond to AC's but you need education:

From:

http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/dick/cos_ency c.html

Discovery and Early Research: Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by Victor Hess, when he found that an electroscope discharged more rapidly as he ascended in a balloon. He attributed this to a source of radiation entering the atmosphere from above, and in 1936 was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery. For some time it was believed that the radiation was electromagnetic in nature (hence the name cosmic "rays"), and some textbooks still incorrectly include cosmic rays as part of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, during the 1930's it was found that cosmic rays must be electrically charged because they are affected by the Earth's magnetic field.

Now these articles don't specifically come out and say that the magnetic field protects us, but explains how it works and one of the main concerns about colonization on mars because it doesn't have a strong magnetic field:

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/magnet.html

http://www.sievert-system.org/WebMasters/en/conten u_rayonnement.html

http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wcosray.ht ml

If the earth's magnetic field doesn't protect us from cosmic rays then what does? The Atmosphere... Maybe, but it's apparent in those sites that the rays from the Sun and deep space are affected by Earth's magnetic field.

Also note it's mentioned in Wikipedia's Rare Earth Theory article.

The impact may also result in a large moon to stabilize the axis, and the cores of the original planet and the impacting body merging to form an over-massive core could produce a powerful magnetic field to protect against solar radiation.

The Earth's magnetic field doesn't shield us from cosmic rays.

I hate to respond to AC's but you need education:

From:

http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/dick/cos_ency c.html

Discovery and Early Research: Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by Victor Hess, when he found that an electroscope discharged more rapidly as he ascended in a balloon. He attributed this to a source of radiation entering the atmosphere from above, and in 1936 was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery. For some time it was believed that the radiation was electromagnetic in nature (hence the name cosmic "rays"), and some textbooks still incorrectly include cosmic rays as part of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, during the 1930's it was found that cosmic rays must be electrically charged because they are affected by the Earth's magnetic field.

Now these articles don't specifically come out and say that the magnetic field protects us, but explains how it works and one of the main concerns about colonization on mars because it doesn't have a strong magnetic field:

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/magnet.html

http://www.sievert-system.org/WebMasters/en/conten u_rayonnement.html

http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wcosray.ht ml

If the earth's magnetic field doesn't protect us from cosmic rays then what does? The Atmosphere... Maybe, but it's apparent in those sites that the rays from the Sun and deep space are affected by Earth's magnetic field.

Also note it's mentioned in Wikipedia's Rare Earth Theory article.

The impact may also result in a large moon to stabilize the axis, and the cores of the original planet and the impacting body merging to form an over-massive core could produce a powerful magnetic field to protect against solar radiation.

A sample return mission is in the works, but it's an enormously complex thing to do. At the moment, it's expected to happen no earlier than 2013.

Check this page, if you're interested:
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/sampleret urns.html

"I wonder what the re-entry strategy will be for an orbital version."

Rutan may have experience with a TPS similar to the one on the Space Shuttle: "but much more durable - carbon and metallic-silica tiles for the hottest regions, and flexible blanket-like material for areas receiving less heat during atmospheric reentry".

Another project used "a water-cooled heatshield".

"Look at all the Space Station rescue vehicles that NASA has funded and decided not fly, and in many cases not to build."

The first three test vehicles for one of them were built by Scaled Composites, BTW. And although the fourth and final one was going to be built by NASA itself, the list of planned materials hints at further SC involvement.

"Obviously Scaled Composites hasn't sent anything up besides SS1, and you (as well as others) are correct that SS1 by itself simply won't scale up to orbital velocities without some very substantial structural and raw materials changes. Essentially a whole new spacecraft from the ground up."

The past ten years SC have been involved in building at least four different orbital space craft: they built the aeroshell and aerodynamic control structures of the DC-X 1/3 Scale Demonstrator for McDonnell Douglas, and entirely built the Roton test vehicle for Rotary Rocket and the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle for NASA. These programs died because funding dried up.

However, you would still be right (if entirely beside the point) that "Scaled Composites hasn't sent anything up besides SS1", if it weren't for the wings of the Pegasus rocket SC builds for Orbital Sciences, a rocket which has succesfully flown to orbit dozens of to times.

You may not trust in the space faring abilities of Burt Rutan and his team, but the space corporations of the USA do. Guess who I am going to believe.

Few things: The atmospheric pressure on mars is only ~10 millibars, whereas earth's atmospheric pressure is ~1000 millibars. That drops water's boiling point to around ~70 celcius. That alone isn't enough to cause the water to boil, I think the parent probably meant "evaporated" or just didn't have all the facts. Water would evaporate more quickly than on earth due to the low pressure, and sublimation. Enough energy from the sun reaches Mars to do that easily.

Mars definitely does have an atmosphere, check this out.

-Jesse

APOD did the same for an April Fools' Joke.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html

I wonder which one was first? Geologically speaking, of course, they happened at the same time.

So, which of you clumsy dolts knocked the glass over?

Re:Couple more (Score:?)
by wbean (222522) on Thursday August 25, @12:18PM
Actually, if you use the CPI inflator found at http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/inflateCPI.html, you find that the ticket-price inflation occured prior to 1967. Prices have been remarkably stable since then - even through the high-inflation period in the 70's.

My problem is that I don't want to sit through 20 minutes of commercials for movies I'd rather not see and the volume is often loud enought that I've taken to carrying earplugs.

Here are some sample datapoints:

Year Price Price in 2004 $
2004 $6.21 6.21
2000 $5.39 5.91
1990 $4.22 6.09
1980 $2.69 6.16
1967 $1.22 6.90
1963 $0.86 5.30
1958 $0.68 4.44
1954 $0.49 3.44
1948 $0.36 2.82

Actually, they had to retract that after it was found that there was a mistake in the calculations.

The new colour was actually give the name "Cosmic latte", APOD had an entry about it.

According to NASA the russian spacecraft Soyuz chases the station for two days before it docks. Considering that the Soyuz is the smallest manned spacecraft to dock with the ISS you gotta wonder how much of its total mass is fuel needed for that maneuver. According to the russian space web the total mass of the Soyuz at launch is 7.1 tons. The propulsion module takes up 2.6 tons of that. Note the amount of payload the Soyuz can actually deliver - 3 crew and 30kg. Less than 1% of the total mass. Oxygen aint that heavy. So other than the heat shield on the descent module (total weight 2.9 tons) what's taking up so much of the total mass? It's gotta be fuel right? So what happens if you gather solar power in space and use it to propel your orbiter? You could use a MagBeam to do it. All of a sudden you havn't got much to lift up to orbit. Just those nice light humans and some nice light oxygen so they don't suffocate on the way and a nice light inflatable heat shield so they don't burn up when you take them home.

But here's a silly question. Who says we have to take up a whole heat shield on every launch? We could send up parts of the heat shield, sew em together in orbit, tie together all the descent modules we've launched in the last 10 flights and send everyone home together.

The room for innovation in manned space flight is astronomical. We just havn't seen any because there's no motivation to reduce costs when your space program is funded by taxpayer dollars.

Actually, actual morhing has been in research at NASA for quite a while. TFA mentions that Lind came from NASA working on similar programs. See http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/AAW/in dex.html for the Active Aeroelastic Wing program that I was a part of several years ago. (Action pics here: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AAW/). This program involved changing not only the external shape of the wing, but the internal structure to alter its stiffness properties (which would change the natural frequency of the wing and move the flutter boundaries around). -m

Actually, actual morhing has been in research at NASA for quite a while. TFA mentions that Lind came from NASA working on similar programs. See http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/AAW/in dex.html for the Active Aeroelastic Wing program that I was a part of several years ago. (Action pics here: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AAW/). This program involved changing not only the external shape of the wing, but the internal structure to alter its stiffness properties (which would change the natural frequency of the wing and move the flutter boundaries around). -m

It shouldnt be too surprising... After all the Voyagers are still reporting home 20 years over their life expectancy too! http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

zipping past at very, very high speed.

"Dana flew the X-15 research airplane 16 times, reaching a top speed of 3,897 miles per hour and a peak altitude of 310,000 feet (almost 59 miles high).http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-15/ HTML/E-16808.html

59 Miles should be enough to grant you space wings. They asked for a bit more for the Xprize (328,000 feet) but it is true than even spaceShipOne is gloating about "SpaceShipOne Wins X-Prize - Breaks X-15 altitude record"...

Now, if he had won the prize money, he might have been more "impressed" with the matter...

Uhh, the link seems to be missing. Therefore, here are the NASA and Wikipedia links to X-15 articles for your reading enjoyment.

I think finding a way to supress the sonic boom so that it can fly over any country is critical to the success of any future supersonic plane.

I think finding a way to supress the sonic boom so that it can fly over any country is critical to the success of any future supersonic plane.

Just by luck, they caught an image of a really large and nearby devil about 3 sols ago. A second one is visible in the background. They seem to travel in packs.

You might want to follow the NASA World Wind project. It does the same thing as Google Earth and is open source.

If I remember correctly there is a "2D" port to Linux, by which I mean you can only view directly towards the surface of the earth and can't tilt it to see land elevation.

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ - main site
http://www.worldwindcentral.com/ - "fan" site
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasa-exp/ - sf site
http://ww2d.berlios.de/ - 2D port

Cheers,

Roger

Some additional (and larger) animations of Martian dust devils are available here:

Animations for August 19
Animations for July 8

This animation is my favorite, with maybe a half-dozen dust devils charging past the camera, some of them quite close.

Some additional (and larger) animations of Martian dust devils are available here:

Animations for August 19
Animations for July 8

This animation is my favorite, with maybe a half-dozen dust devils charging past the camera, some of them quite close.

Some additional (and larger) animations of Martian dust devils are available here:

Animations for August 19
Animations for July 8

This animation is my favorite, with maybe a half-dozen dust devils charging past the camera, some of them quite close.